US judges have denied requests from the Republican-led states of Missouri and Texas to prevent the federal government from dispatching lawyers to their states on Election Day to monitor adherence to federal voting rights laws.
Missouri and Texas are among the 27 states where the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would send staff to observe voting locations, as it has routinely done during national elections.
On Tuesday morning, Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered the DOJ to confirm that “no observers” would be present inside polling locations in Texas, but declined to issue the restraining order the state had sought. “The Court cannot issue a temporary restraining order without further clarification on the distinction between ‘monitoring’ and ‘observing’ on the eve of a consequential election,” Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, stated in his ruling.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had earlier argued that sending monitors “infringes on States’ constitutional authority to conduct free and fair elections.” The lawsuit claimed that, “under Texas law, the list of persons who may be present in voting locations or central counting stations does not include federal authorities.”
The state’s request for a temporary restraining order was also denied by Missouri District Judge Sarah Pitlyk, who stated late Monday that “the harms that the State of Missouri anticipates are speculative.”
Missouri’s lawsuit accused the Justice Department of executing an 11th-hour plan intended to “displace state election authorities” by dispatching poll monitors to various locations in St. Louis on Tuesday. During a Monday evening hearing, counsel for the DOJ clarified that two election monitors were in Missouri to observe a single polling place in St. Louis. This polling place reached a settlement with the Justice Department in January 2021 to address concerns about architectural barriers and other issues that could have impeded voting access for people with disabilities.
